Baked Zucchini and Summer Squash Fritters

Kateryna Bondar
Baked Zucchini and Summer Squash FrittersBaked Zucchini and Summer Squash Fritters
Cuisine
Course
Serves 4 people
Prep time
15m
Cook Time
20m

These fritters are baked rather than fried, and the difference isn’t only in the calories: the spongy flesh of young squash drinks pan oil like bread, while on a sheet pan it stays itself. The crust comes from a thin scatter of dry breadcrumbs misted with oil — at 220°C (425°F) they toast in the same 15 to 20 minutes it takes the egg and starch inside to set.

Purple basil isn’t there for the color. Its anise-and-clove note is stronger than green basil’s and survives the oven, which matters against a vegetable as mild as squash. The dipping sauce is built on tvorog, the dry crumbly farmer cheese of Eastern Europe — well-drained whole-milk ricotta or dry-curd cottage cheese is the closest thing on a US shelf — loosened with smetana, the thick full-fat sour cream that sits somewhere near crème fraîche.

Three things worth knowing

  • Young squash is almost entirely water. Wring the grated flesh out by hand or in cheesecloth, or the batter runs together into one sheet-sized pancake.
  • If you add boiled potato for tenderness, halve the starch; together they turn the fritters gummy.
  • Use curd cheese at 9–18% fat. Nonfat makes a grainy, sour sauce that no amount of sour cream will rescue.

The walnuts in the sauce can become toasted sunflower seeds — same nutty tone, no allergen. Reheat leftovers in the oven; a microwave just steams them soft again.

Part of European cuisine — 103 more recipes in the section.

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Ingredients

  • 3-4
    small young squash (about 600 g)
  • 1
    zucchini (about 200 g)
  • 2
    eggs
  • 3 Tablespoons
    starch
  • 2 Tablespoons
    flour
  • 1
    bunch of purple basil
  • breadcrumbs for coating
  • oil for drizzling
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • For the Sauce:
  • 100 Grams
    fermented cottage cheese (18%)
  • 75 Grams
    sour cream (23%)
  • 1
    bunch of any fresh herbs
  • 3 Tablespoons
    chopped walnuts

Instructions

  1. Sauce
    Mix the fermented cottage cheese with the sour cream, chopped walnuts, and minced herbs. Set the sauce aside in the refrigerator while you make the fritters.

  2. Fritters
    Grate the zucchini and squash, or cut them into thin julienne strips.

  3. Add the eggs, starch, flour, chopped basil, salt, and pepper, and mix well.

  4. Spoon the mixture onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, forming small fritters.

  5. Sprinkle them with breadcrumbs, drizzle with oil, and bake for 15 to 20 minutes at 220°C (425°F).

  6. Serve the finished fritters with the cheese-and-walnut sauce.

Nutrition: Calories: 200 kcal · protein 9 g · fat 12 g · carbs 15 g (per serving, estimated)

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